South Carolina

Image: National Archives, Records of Exposition, Anniversary,
and Memorial Commissions(148-CCD-81a)

One of the most aristocratic delegates at the convention, Butler
was born in 1744 in County Carlow, Ireland. His father was Sir Richard
Butler, member of Parliament and a baronet.

Like so many younger sons of the British aristocracy who could
not inherit their fathers' estates because of primogeniture, Butler pursued
a military career. He became a major in His Majesty's 29th Regiment and
during the colonial unrest was posted to Boston in 1768 to quell disturbances
there. In 1771 he married Mary Middleton, daughter of a wealthy South Carolinian,
and before long resigned his commission to take up a planter's life in
the Charleston area. The couple was to have at least one daughter.

When the Revolution broke out, Butler took up the Whig cause.
He was elected to the assembly in 1778, and the next year he served as
adjutant general in the South Carolina militia. While in the legislature
through most of the 1780s, he took over leadership of the democratic upcountry
faction in the state and refused to support his own planter group. The
War for Independence cost him much of his property, and his finances were
so precarious for a time that he was forced to travel to Amsterdam to seek
a personal loan. In 1786 the assembly appointed him to a commission charged
with settling a state boundary dispute.

The next year, Butler won election to both the Continental Congress
(1787-88) and the Constitutional Convention. In the latter assembly, he
was an outspoken nationalist who attended practically every session and
was a key spokesman for the Madison-Wilson caucus. Butler also supported
the interests of southern slaveholders. He served on the Committee on Postponed
Matters.

On his return to South Carolina Butler defended the Constitution
but did not participate in the ratifying convention. Service in the U.S.
Senate (1789-96) followed. Although nominally a Federalist, he often crossed
party lines. He supported Hamilton's fiscal program but opposed Jay's Treaty
and Federalist judiciary and tariff measures.

Out of the Senate and back in South Carolina from 1797 to 1802,
Butler was considered for but did not attain the governorship. He sat briefly
in the Senate again in 1803-4 to fill out an unexpired term, and he once
again demonstrated party independence. But, for the most part, his later
career was spent as a wealthy planter. In his last years, he moved to Philadelphia,
apparently to be near a daughter who had married a local physician. Butler
died there in 1822 at the age of 77 and was buried in the yard of Christ
Church.

Charles PinckneySouth Carolina

Image: National Archives, Records of Exposition, Anniversary,
and Memorial Commissions(148-CCD-54)

Charles Pinckney, the second cousin of fellow-signer Charles Cotesworth
Pinckney, was born at Charleston, SC, in 1757. His father, Col. Charles
Pinckney, was a rich lawyer and planter, who on his death in 1782 was to
bequeath Snee Farm, a country estate outside the city, to his son Charles.
The latter apparently received all his education in the city of his birth,
and he started to practice law there in 1779.

About that time, well after the War for Independence had begun,
young Pinckney enlisted in the militia, though his father demonstrated
ambivalence about the Revolution. He became a lieutenant, and served at
the siege of Savannah (September-October 1779). When Charleston fell to
the British the next year, the youth was captured and remained a prisoner
until June 1781.

Pinckney had also begun a political career, serving in the Continental
Congress (1777-78 and 1784-87) and in the state legislature (1779-80, 1786-89,
and 1792-96). A nationalist, he worked hard in Congress to ensure that
the United States would receive navigation rights to the Mississippi and
to strengthen congressional power.

Pinckney's role in the Constitutional Convention is controversial.
Although one of the youngest delegates, he later claimed to have been the
most influential one and contended he had submitted a draft that was the
basis of the final Constitution. Most historians have rejected this assertion.
They do, however, recognize that he ranked among the leaders. He attended
full time, spoke often and effectively, and contributed immensely to the
final draft and to the resolution of problems that arose during the debates.
He also worked for ratification in South Carolina (1788). That same year,
he married Mary Eleanor Laurens, daughter of a wealthy and politically
powerful South Carolina merchant; she was to bear at least three children.

Subsequently, Pinckney's career blossomed. From 1789 to 1792 he
held the governorship of South Carolina, and in 1790 chaired the state
constitutional convention. During this period, he became associated with
the Federalist Party, in which he and his cousin Charles Cotesworth Pinckney
were leaders. But, with the passage of time, the former's views began to
change. In 1795 he attacked the Federalist backed Jay's Treaty and increasingly
began to cast his lot with Carolina back-country Democratic-Republicans
against his own eastern aristocracy. In 1796 he became governor once again,
and in 1798 his Democratic-Republican supporters helped him win a seat
in the U.S. Senate. There, he bitterly opposed his former party, and in
the presidential election of 1800 served as Thomas Jefferson's campaign
manager in South Carolina.

The victorious Jefferson appointed Pinckney as Minister to Spain
(1801-5), in which capacity he struggled valiantly but unsuccessfully to
win cession of the Floridas to the United States and facilitated Spanish
acquiescence in the transfer of Louisiana from France to the United States
in 1803.

Upon completion of his diplomatic mission, his ideas moving ever
closer to democracy, Pinckney headed back to Charleston and to leadership
of the state Democratic-Republican Party. He sat in the legislature in
1805-6 and then was again elected as governor (1806-8). In this position,
he favored legislative reapportionment, giving better representation to
back-country districts, and advocated universal white manhood suffrage.
He served again in the legislature from 1810 to 1814 and then temporarily
withdrew from politics. In 1818 he won election to the U.S. House of Representatives,
where he fought against the Missouri Compromise.

In 1821, Pinckney's health beginning to fail, he retired for the
last time from politics. He died in 1824, just 3 days after his 67th birthday.
He was laid to rest in Charleston at St. Philip's Episcopal Churchyard.

Charles Cotesworth PinckneySouth Carolina

Image: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution

The eldest son of a politically prominent planter and a remarkable mother
who introduced and promoted indigo culture in South Carolina, Charles Cotesworth
Pinckney was born in 1746 at Charleston. Only 7 years later, he accompanied
his father, who had been appointed colonial agent for South Carolina, to
England. As a result, the youth enjoyed a European education.

Pinckney received tutoring in London, attended several preparatory
schools, and went on to Christ Church College, Oxford, where he heard the
lectures of the legal authority Sir William Blackstone and graduated in
1764. Pinckney next pursued legal training at London's Middle Temple and
was accepted for admission into the English bar in 1769. He then spent
part of a year touring Europe and studying chemistry, military science,
and botany under leading authorities.

Late in 1769, Pinckney sailed home and the next year entered practice
in South Carolina. His political career began in 1769, when he was elected
to the provincial assembly. In 1773 he acted as attorney general for several
towns in the colony. By 1775 he had identified with the patriot cause and
that year sat in the provincial congress. Then, the next year, he was elected
to the local committee of safety and made chairman of a committee that
drew up a plan for the interim government of South Carolina.

When hostilities broke out, Pinckney, who had been a royal militia
officer since 1769, pursued a full-time military calling. When South Carolina
organized its forces in 1775, he joined the First South Carolina Regiment
as a captain. He soon rose to the rank of colonel and fought in the South
in defense of Charleston and in the North at the Battles of Brandywine,
PA, and Germantown, PA. He commanded a regiment in the campaign against
the British in the Floridas in 1778 and at the siege of Savannah. When
Charleston fell in 1780, he was taken prisoner and held until 1782. The
following year, he was discharged as a brevet brigadier general.

After the war, Pinckney resumed his legal practice and the management
of estates in the Charleston area but found time to continue his public
service, which during the war had included tours in the lower house of
the state legislature (1778 and 1782) and the senate (1779).

Pinckney was one of the leaders at the Constitutional Convention.
Present at all the sessions, he strongly advocated a powerful national
government. His proposal that senators should serve without pay was not
adopted, but he exerted influence in such matters as the power of the Senate
to ratify treaties and the compromise that was reached concerning abolition
of the international slave trade. After the convention, he defended the
Constitution in South Carolina.

Under the new government, Pinckney became a devoted Federalist.
Between 1789 and 1795 he declined presidential offers to command the U.S.
Army and to serve on the Supreme Court and as Secretary of War and Secretary
of State. In 1796, however, he accepted the post of Minister to France,
but the revolutionary regime there refused to receive him and he was forced
to proceed to the Netherlands. The next year, though, he returned to France
when he was appointed to a special mission to restore relations with that
country. During the ensuing XYZ affair, refusing to pay a bribe suggested
by a French agent to facilitate negotiations, he was said to have replied
"No! No! Not a sixpence!"

When Pinckney arrived back in the United States in 1798, he found
the country preparing for war with France. That year, he was appointed
as a major general in command of American forces in the South and served
in that capacity until 1800, when the threat of war ended. That year, he
represented the Federalists as Vice-Presidential candidate, and in 1804
and 1808 as the Presidential nominee. But he met defeat on all three occasions.

For the rest of his life, Pinckney engaged in legal practice,
served at times in the legislature, and engaged in philanthropic activities.
He was a charter member of the board of trustees of South Carolina College
(later the University of South Carolina), first president of the Charleston
Bible Society, and chief executive of the Charleston Library Society. He
also gained prominence in the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization
of former officers of the War for Independence.

During the later period of his life, Pinckney enjoyed his Belmont
estate and Charleston high society. He was twice married; first to Sarah
Middleton in 1773 and after her death to Mary Stead in 1786. Survived by
three daughters, he died in Charleston in 1825 at the age of 79. He was
interred there in the cemetery at St. Michael's Episcopal Church.

John RutledgeSouth Carolina

Image: The J.B. Speed Art Museum

John Rutledge, elder brother of Edward Rutledge, signer of the Declaration
of Independence, was born into a large family at or near Charleston, SC,
in 1739. He received his early education from his father, an Irish immigrant
and physician, and from an Anglican minister and a tutor. After studying
law at London's Middle Temple in 1760, he was admitted to English practice.
But, almost at once, he sailed back to Charleston to begin a fruitful legal
career and to amass a fortune in plantations and slaves. Three years later,
he married Elizabeth Grimke, who eventually bore him 10 children, and moved
into a townhouse, where he resided most of the remainder of his life.

In 1761 Rutledge became politically active. That year, on behalf
of Christ Church Parish, he was elected to the provincial assembly and
held his seat until the War for Independence. For 10 months in 1764 he
temporarily held the post of provincial attorney general. When the troubles
with Great Britain intensified about the time of the Stamp Act in 1765,
Rutledge, who hoped to ensure continued self-government for the colonies,
sought to avoid severance from the British and maintained a restrained
stance. He did, however, chair a committee of the Stamp Act Congress that
drew up a petition to the House of Lords.

In 1774 Rutledge was sent to the First Continental Congress, where
he pursued a moderate course. After spending the next year in the Second
Continental Congress, he returned to South Carolina and helped reorganize
its government. In 1776 he served on the committee of safety and took part
in the writing of the state constitution. That year, he also became president
of the lower house of the legislature, a post he held until 1778. During
this period, the new government met many stern tests.

In 1778 the conservative Rutledge, disapproving of democratic
revisions in the state constitution, resigned his position. The next year,
however, he was elected as governor. It was a difficult time. The British
were invading South Carolina, and the military situation was desperate.
Early in 1780, by which time the legislature had adjourned, Charleston
was besieged. In May it fell, the American army was captured, and the British
confiscated Rutledge's property. He ultimately escaped to North Carolina
and set about attempting to rally forces to recover South Carolina. In
1781, aided by Gen. Nathanael Greene and a new Continental Army force,
he reestablished the government. In January 1782 he resigned the governorship
and took a seat in the lower house of the legislature. He never recouped
the financial losses he suffered during the war.

In 1782-83 Rutledge was a delegate to the Continental Congress.
He next sat on the state chancery court (1784) and again in the lower house
of the legislature (1784-90). One of the most influential delegates at
the Constitutional Convention, where he maintained a moderate nationalist
stance and chaired the Committee of Detail, he attended all the sessions,
spoke often and effectively, and served on five committees. Like his fellow
South Carolina delegates, he vigorously advocated southern interests.

The new government under the Constitution soon lured Rutledge.
He was a Presidential elector in 1789 and Washington then appointed him
as Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, but for some reason he
apparently served only a short time. In 1791 he became chief justice of
the South Carolina supreme court. Four years later, Washington again appointed
him to the U.S. Supreme Court, this time as Chief Justice to replace John
Jay. But Rutledge's outspoken opposition to Jay's Treaty (1794), and the
intermittent mental illness he had suffered from since the death of his
wife in 1792, caused the Federalist-dominated Senate to reject his appointment
and end his public career. Meantime, however, he had presided over one
term of the Court.

Rutledge died in 1800 at the age of 60 and was interred at St.
Michael's Episcopal Church in Charleston.